


never go home

by TolkienGirl



Series: Vintage Winchesters: Season 1 Tags [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Constance Welch - Freeform, Episode: s01e01 Pilot, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Missing Scene, Motels, Survivor Guilt, Wayyy back at the beginning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:34:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24522448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: “Spirits will say anything,” Dean says, each word feeling wrong. “You know that.”
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Jessica Moore/Sam Winchester
Series: Vintage Winchesters: Season 1 Tags [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1777720
Comments: 5
Kudos: 42





	never go home

They’re in a motel. A nice one; Dean sprang for it. The bedspreads are almost new, but Dean isn’t going to sleep tonight. He takes the chair, cleans a gun. His head is full of smoke and his eyes are full of Sam. It’s always going to be like that, and at times, he’s even _wanted_ this—but he’s not a praying man. He didn’t intercede with spirits, and so he can’t blame himself for the mirrored answers of time.

Can’t he?

“Said I would be.”

When Sam says anything, he speaks in fragments. Sam when he’s happy or angry or scared talks a mile a minute, all righteous and shit. Sam when he’s—broken—

“What would be?” Dean prompts, sliding the silver-gleaming shards into something lethal and whole.

“Constance Welch.” He’s groping in the darkness, blind to the yellow incandescents as if they’re no help at all. “Said I would be unfaithful.”

They could have had this conversation three hours ago. Dean would have teased him then, would have said, _aw, such a square, even a ghost bitch thinks you’re too good to be true_ , and Sam would have narrowed his eyes and pretended to be insulted.

Dean would have arranged that moment with all the others, the ones he’d look at sometimes, the moments before goodbye.

“Spirits will say anything,” Dean says, each word feeling wrong. “You know that.”

Sam’s head rolls a little, side to side. He’s looking for something. Some way out of this.

Dean feels about four years old. No—not _about_. Exactly.

“She knew,” Sam whispers. “Somehow—she knew.” He doesn’t let Dean interrupt. He’s talking again, talking fast like Sam always does, even Sam when he’s broken. “She knew I’d chosen something else. Not to be there. Out on the road, and the thing came—the thing came and—if I’d _been_ there—”

“You don’t know that.” Dean is at his most stubborn when death seems very near. “You can’t know that. Dad was downstairs in the living room, when…”

“But how could Dad have prepared?” Sam returns sharply. He’s crying again. His eyes are red. His nose runs. Dean hasn’t cried in a long time, so he’ll blame the smoke for his part. “He didn’t believe in—no. We spent our whole lives training. We can crack a case in a day or two. And I should have felt something. I should have…damn it, damn it, _damn it_.” His hands cover his face. His hands are so long and strong, bigger than Dad’s. Bigger than Dean’s. Dean stares at the ceiling. It’s an ugly ceiling, new motel or not.

He lets Sam cry it out without touching him. He’s here. He’s here if Sam wants him. But it’s Dean’s fault, Dean who lured him away, Dean who made him choose.

There is one moment before goodbye that Dean will keep for always—Sam turning, _we made a hell of a team back there_ —

Sam will never look young like that again.


End file.
